Pentecost 8

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 8
PROPER: 12C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 26,1998

TEXT: Luke 11:1-13 - The Lord's Prayer and Parable of the Importunate Friend
"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened."

ISSUE: For Jesus, God is the ultimate patron, and God will provide for his creation. Therefore, we are called upon to be faithfully persistent in our relationship with God. There is a real sense in which the Lord's Prayer is revolutionary. God is the ultimate patron and his people shall insist upon justice: daily bread, forgiveness and justice, and an escape from evil. This prayer is the continual yearning of the people of God.
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One of the truly great treasures of our Christian Faith is the ever familiar Lord's Prayer. How many times have some of us recited it. I often recite it either out loud or to myself several times each day. It is beautiful and meaningful in its utter simplicity. However, in its regular use we may sometimes find that in its familiarity, the prayer loses some of its deep meaning for us. The reading from Luke this morning wherein Jesus reportedly teaches his disciples the prayer brings the Prayer to our attention. We are given the opportunity to study it and reflect upon its original and deep meaning. We have probably lost, and maybe never really appreciated that the prayer originally was a prayer of a revolutionary movement. It has a real revolutionary motif to it. It might be good for ust to reclaim something of that appreciation for the prayer. Americans today don't normally think of themselves as revolutionaries. In fact today we kind of look down on revolutionaries, and they are often labeled as communists.
It's helpful to appreciate a few things about Jesus' time and his own movement and mission. Keep in mind that in the 1st century about 90 percent of the people of the time were peasants. The other 10 percent were the rich. There was no middle class to speak of. The peasants were subject to whoever was in control of their lives. Landowners told them what they could plant. The Romans told them how much tax they had to pay. Who you married, your education, if any, was dependent upon you controlling patron or father. In this paternalistic society, people were under control of the controlling male in a family. Thus, to have any control in your life, you had to know who to try to influence. You had to know in various instances who your patron was. Peasants were clients and rulers or leaders were the patrons. So for any kind of control you had to appeal to them, try to influence the patron (father-figure) in your life. Only the patron could get for you what you yourself could not get.
Now in this kind of culture, people had to do a lot of asking, seeking, and knocking upon the doors of their patrons to have an influence. Jesus, who was an itinerant preacher. Jesus along with his band of followers had to do a lot of asking, seeking, and knocking as they traveled through Palestine to find their way and have places to stay. Thus, Jesus' disciples were familiar with asking, seeking, and knocking. The ministry of Jesus was by and large a ministry that was intended to reveal the importance of the God of love in people's lives. Jesus proclaims a ministry which calls people's attention to the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand a revolutionary kingdom where the poor had a place. The ultimate patron of their lives and in this kingdom is God, the Father.
In this scene today, the disciples ask Jesus, "Teach us to pray." They are asking, "How do we influence God, the Ultimate Patron." The issue is a matter of how do we have and establish a relationship with God. Rabbi's of the time were teachers of prayer, as John the Baptist had been for his disciples. So Jesus begins the Lord's Prayer by teaching them to address God as Abba, Father. The Aramaic word "Abba" is the familiar form of the word "Father." In English "Abba" is similar to our word "Daddy." You say when you pray, "Father, hallowed (or holy) is your name. Let your kingdom come." "Abba" gives that sense of intimacy with the divine Father, with the ultimate patron. Yet recognize that God is Holy Sacred, unique, set apart. His kingdom is the be all and the end all of our lives. Jesus teaches his disciples to address The initmate Father with great respect and honor recognizing our place in his Kingdom. For Jesus, the focus of his disciples lives is to be upon the ultimate patronage of God the Father. All other patrons are lesser figures in the world.
Then says Jesus, make these three basic petitions: 1. Give us this day our daily bread. 2. Forgive us our sins as we will forgive the debts of others. Remember this is a prayer of peasants. They were all deeply indebt. To be sinful was to be alienated from God. To be indebt was to be obligated. To be forgiven of sins and not obligated to one another was to be in union with God, to be in a right relationship with God, and to be free from indebtedness was great liberation and unity of community. 3. Do not bring us to a time of trial. (or hard testing.) 'Hard testing 'or 'time of trial' meant to deliver God's people from their ever falling away from Him. God was to keep them from apostasy and seeking influence elsewhere in the more evil places of the world.
God is the ultimate Patron. God is the one who provides our food, our forgiveness and our freedom, and the eternal place in his Kingdom. What more did they need? Note the revolutionary content: God is King, no one else. Honor Him. God is the one who provides, forgives, and saves. Turn to him and live. It is not the Romans, not the state, not the Landowner, not the rich. There is another Kingdom and another Patron to whom they may turn to influence. This is the prayer of the community of God. It turned its back on all other worldly patrons and mortal human powers. Jesus' prayer is about being focused upon the prevailing Goodness of God. United as a family in God was the hope of the community.
Then Lukes says that Jesus told this parable. There was a man who had unexpected guests arrive in the middle of the night. Hospitality was very important, so he must provide the hungry travelers with bread. So he runs next door to wake up the neighbor to loan him some bread for his guests. Now the next door neighbor is very resistant to get up and wake up all his kids and get the animals rowled up. If the neighbor says, "Go away; don't bother me, everything is lokck for the night and the kids are in bed." Persist in getting him up. Tell him you will tell all the neighborhood the next day that he was shameful in not helping you provide hospitality. He would be dishonored in the community. Once you remind him of his obligation to be honorable he will get up and give you bread. Keep knocking; keep seeking, keep asking, says Jesus. Be persistent with God in your prayers. Be faithful.
Afterall, in all of our own imperfections, when our children ask for a fish to eat, you don't give them an eel, an unedible fish. If you child asks for an egg, you don't give them a scorpion. (Rolled up scorpions looked like eggs). "How then," says Jesus, "could God the Father who is the creator of all not respond to the needs of his children?" It would be shameful of God not to respond to his people. Ask, seek, keep knocking, remain faithful in your pursuit of God and God's justice for his world. Simple, profound, and revolutionary was this prayer of Jesus the rabbi who called upon his God's people to be faithful.
Obvously our world today is different in many ways from the 1st Century. We are much more affluent. Prayer is not so important to us, as many of our needs are met. This age is a scientific age, a more sophisticated age. We see ourselves as knowledgeable, educated, more in control. We don't have a lot of need for prayer, or see its importance expect in more extreme cases when we do feel out of control. What I see in this passage on Prayer is the call or demand, a profound expression to maintain a faithfulness and trust in God. It is the reminder to be in a continuing relationship with God. We remember that God is the ultimate Creator to be hallowed. It is God who desires that his children have their bread, be forgiven, loved, know justice, and remain faithful. In prayerful relationship, in faithfulness we are the people in God's world. We want all people to be seen as worthy of sitting down to the banquet of God. We want, like in the Feeding of the 5,000, for the whole people of God to feast. We want to be right with God and want all to be forgiven of debts that may separate us from God and from one another. We want an end to poverty, and human humiliation or lack of esteem. We want to never fall away, be tempted away from our calling to be the clients of God through whom his grace may flow and abound.
The issue for us is long for, top desire, to yearn for all nations and communities to have enough to eat. We as Christians, followers of Christ, yearn and long for all people to have a reasonable and comfortable place to live. We should desire that all people in whatever afflictions may have the hope of healing, and the facilities of hospitals, home, centers of healing to be made available. We should want through our prayer the goodness to be in relationship with the afflicted as truly good neighbors who are involved in the needs of the poor and the afflicted. To pray for daily bread and forgivness of sin and debt is to be in communion, relationship, and fellowship with prejudices resolved.
Lord Jesus teach us to pray. Teach us to know God and to hallow him, to be aware that this place is His Kingdom. Teach us to want the spiritual food of life that sustains us and all people. Teach us to accept forgiveness from our alienation, and not to be alienated from our brothers and sisters. Teach us to stay faithful so that we can continune to be channels of God's grace and trust that God shall never abandon us. The Lord's Prayer is not only the prayer Jesus taught us, but it is our theme song, the simplest creed of our Christian community that affirms God is above and beyond. Yet God is intimate, like a father. God is Holy. God provides what we need and we are his own in faithful relationship with him. AMEN.

Addendum:
In our own prayer book, at each Eucharist the priest says: "And now as our savior Christ has taught us we are bold to say." For the people of Jesus time, especially the Jewish community, God was indeed awesome. God in prayer was approached with great respect. Perhaps, there were at times a fear of even approaching God in respect to human sinfulness. Who is worthy to approach God. But in this passage, Jesus makes his followers bold and worthy to pray "Our Father." They may approach the Lord God with boldness and ask for, seek, yearn for, knock for what they need. In faithful persistence, we are assured that God is mindful of all we need and ask for, and loves us for our daring relationship with Him.